The Unteachables Podcast

#62. 'Apathetic' teenagers, post-pandemic classrooms, and finding all the glimmers with Dr Lori Desautels

• Claire English • Season 4 • Episode 62

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On today's episode I speak to the brilliant Dr Lori Desautels to answer one of the big behaviour questions I am often asked...

What's going on with apathetic teenage behaviour?!

As well as this, we speak about:

  • Neuroplasticity and why it is crucial for teachers to have an understanding around.
  • How we can transform the experiences and education of our students in the smallest of moments, in the day to day 'touch points'. 
  • How you can foster a classroom environment where students feel a sense of trust and emotional safety.
  • The impact of the pandemic on the emotional wellbeing of our students and how this manifests in challenging classroom behaviours 
  • Plus so much more

I am so excited to bring you this episode. Dr Lori Desautels is an absolute wealth of knowledge and experience, and is a true leader in education. 

Instagram @lori.desautels 


Dr Lori Desautels has been an Assistant Professor at Butler University since 2016 where she teaches both undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Education.  Lori was also an Assistant Professor at Marian University in Indianapolis for 8 years where she founded the Educational Neuroscience Symposium that has now reached thousands of educators and is in its 10th year.  Lori’s passion is engaging her students through the social and relational neurosciences as it applies to education by integrating the Applied Educational Neuroscience framework, and its learning principles and practices into her coursework at Butler.  The Applied Educational Neuroscience Certification, created by Lori in 2016, is specifically designed to meet the needs of educators, counselors, clinicians and administrators who work beside children and adolescents who have, and are, experiencing adversity and trauma. The certification is now global and has reached hundreds of educators.  

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Claire English:

Welcome to the Unteachables podcast. I'm Claire English, a passionate secondary teacher and leader, turned teacher, mentor and author, and I'm on a mission to transform classroom management and teacher support in schools. It doesn't feel that long ago that I was completely overwhelmed and out of my depth with behavior, trying to swim rather than sink. It took me spending thousands of hours in the classroom, with all of the inevitable ups and downs, to make me the teacher that I am today Confident, capable and empowered in my ability to teach all students yes, even the ones who are the toughest to reach and now I'm dedicated to supporting teachers like yourself to do the same. I created the Unteachables podcast to give you the simple and actionable classroom management strategies and support that you need to run your room with confidence and calm. So if you're a teacher or one in the making, and you're wanting to feel happy and empowered and actually enjoy being in the classroom, whilst also making a massive impact with every single one of your students, then you're definitely in the right place. Let's get started. Hello, wonderful teachers, welcome back to Femme Teachable's podcast.

Claire English:

In this episode, you're not just going to have to listen to my voice, because I have a very special guest. I am talking to the incredible Dr Laurie Desotels. This woman blows me away. I could sit here and go through her entire bio and her experience, which is extensive, including being the author of four books, which I quote endlessly, and also being an assistant professor where she teaches undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Education. But what I really want to talk about in this introduction is what a true leader in education she is. From all of that incredible work that she does do, she says at the start of this interview the most important thing I am doing is I am in the classroom. She also candidly talks about the fact that sometimes they have wonderful days and sometimes they have horrific days. This vulnerability and honesty just reinforces the monumental job we have working with our students and this is what makes her such an incredible leader. So, yes, her bio is incredible and yes, I'm going to put all the details in the show notes, but I just wanted to say that it was so important.

Claire English:

Throughout this episode we cover a bunch of different stuff. We talk about why it's really important for us to understand what's happening in our brains. We talk about the teenage brain and some of the behaviors we should expect because of this. We talk about how critical self-regulation is, but how hard this can be to achieve, and she gives us some really practical advice for supporting ourselves and supporting our students. She also shares just the most beautiful moment she had in the classroom recently, which was such a vital reminder of the power of the work that we do, the impact that we can truly have Teachers. I am so flippant fortunate to bring this discussion to you with this wonderful human, dr Laurie Desartels it is. I can't even tell you what a pleasure it is to have you on the podcast today. It is an understatement to say how much of a fan of your work I am and thank you so much for taking the time to be here. So welcome onto the podcast, laurie.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Claire, thank you so much. I'm excited for our discussion and just chatting with you in this time.

Claire English:

Before we get started, though, if anybody is listening, I don't know how this is possible, but if you're listening and you haven't heard of Dr Laurie's work, could you just tell everybody what you do, what you're all about?

Dr Lori Desautels:

Yeah, absolutely so. I am a teacher first and foremost. I am also a professor at Butler University in the United States, in Indiana, and I teach. What we're going to talk about today it's really looking through the lens of applied educational neuroscience and peeling back what is beneath some of the negative behaviors that we misunderstand in our children, in our adolescents and really within our own nervous systems. We can just be thrown into these survival states and we are reactive and later on we're left with feeling depleted or feeling worn out, fatigued, and we just don't understand.

Dr Lori Desautels:

So that's my work. I travel around the world working with schools and organizations. I teach this framework at Butler in our graduate programs, but the most important thing I'm doing is I'm in the classroom and two days a week or two half days, I am this semester with 10 and 11 year olds in fifth grade and I've been in our middle schools here in the United States, in Indianapolis, and I go in and I teach, co-teach, and we've got wonderful days and then we have horrific, horrible days. But we're taking the research and we are creating procedures and routines and practices that help our children and adolescents to understand and, to you know, embody those experiences that can feel scary, or that feel unfamiliar or even threatening.

Claire English:

I love what you said about there are some days that are really good, some days that are really challenging, because, no matter who you are, no matter the skills you have, we are working with human beings and with all of its messiness, and there's no like we can implement everything and we can understand the things that you teach, but at the end of the day, when we stand in front of those young people, all we can bring is our offerings of safety to them, and you know the fact like we can't control everything that happens in that space, but we can control our responses, and the work you do is foundational to everything that we do as educators all of those foundations of regulation, understanding how that operates in the classroom. You are the most quoted person. So I run courses and stuff for teachers and I just wrote a book and you were the most quoted person in all of my work, because this work is so important.

Claire English:

So anybody who doesn't get my courses you know Laurie because I have spoken about her endlessly, um, so thank you so much for that rundown the work you're doing is so important and the fact you're still in the classroom and that what you're doing is relevant and applied and that is so important. Like we're not coming from a place of you know detachment, like, oh you know, I've gone to do all of these things now and I'm not in the classroom and I don't understand that the trials and tribulations. Like you're there in the trenches and you know exactly what it's like for educators that are listening. The name of your most recent book and I wish I had it with me. So I just move countries and I have everything in like a big shipping container but the name of your most recent book is Intentional Neuroplasticity. Please give anybody who's listening a rundown of what neuroplasticity is and what it has to even do with the young people we teach.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Well, neuroplasticity is not just the brain but our nervous systems ability to change based on experience, and I'm oversimplifying that when I talk about it. But we teach this to our children and adolescents, because every experience that we encounter whether you know, or whether we think about relationships or environments, all of those facets of our lives impact the developing nervous system, impact the adult nervous system and they begin to kind of rewire the way we perceive the world, and so it's really a superpower that we have as human beings. And when we think about neuroplasticity from the educational lens, it can be likened to growth mindset, so that as we move through school and as we move through our day, as we move through a weekend, we don't have to be who we were a minute ago or yesterday. We get a do-over because our nervous system is so adaptable and our nervous system is integrated so that it impacts every system in our body. And that's hopeful, so intentional neuroplasticity is plasticity that we are aware of and that we are planning for, and it's not just by default.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Many of us have habits that we just don't even. You know. We have habits we don't like. Some of us have habits and rituals we do like, but oftentimes we react or we respond in ways that feel familiar to the nervous system. So we call those kind of that default mode. It's like we're not really aware. And so we ask our students to open every door for a week with their opposite, non-dominant hand. Just simple practices like that to begin to feel how different it is from a Sunday to a Saturday. And the more you do something, the more you practice. With repetition it becomes familiar to the nervous system, becomes easier and you do it with more ease.

Claire English:

That's brilliant.

Claire English:

I love what you said about it being hopeful, because what can often happen in the classroom is students come in with disorganized attachments and with all the behaviors that are a manifestation of that stress response and you know dysregulated nervous systems and it's easy to say as educators, oh well, they shouldn't be here, or you know it's a lost cause, or you know all of those things that come from a place of us being really overwhelmed as educators as well, I think and our own nervous systems, meeting that nervous system and not being able to kind of regulate with them.

Claire English:

And you know I would never blame or shame any educator for that. But when you say that, coming down to neuroplasticity, it is hopeful and it's empowering to know about it because what we do in the classroom becomes something that actually can create lifelong change for our young people and it can impact everything for them. It might not seem like it in the day to day but you know, fast forward a year with all of those little talk about touch points. Little you talk about touch points and I just talk about, like investing in their emotional piggy bank. However, you talk about those touch points, those are the things that start to kind of rewire the brain in a way.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Absolutely, and this is we think. Sometimes it's not the big things. I just I picked up the book, I just found it, and on the cover of Intentional Neuroplasticity, instead of the brain we have the entire nervous system. And so when you think about those touch points, they're micro moments. Those are those moments of a warm eye gaze, or the way that we touch a shoulder, the way that we smile, the way that we join up with the child. So I have to share the most amazing touch point with you that just happened.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Today. I was with my fifth grade class and I've been with this class since January, so I am co-teaching. I have a wonderful co -teacher Lori Boone is her name and today they felt so safe and so comfortable. After we did our focused attention practice and after we had had a kind of a mini lesson on our triggers and on glimmers, one of the students started to sing and he was singing you Are my Sunshine and all of a sudden this is fifth grade. I mean this is kind of pre-middle school. Every student joined in with him and they began to sing together. They were not laughing, they were smiling, they looked at each other, they were joyful. They didn't sing over each other. They literally felt safe enough with each other, which is just amazing, because this is this class can be very rough. They began to sing for me and I sang with them, I joined in with them and then, right before I left, they said Dr Laura, do you want another song? And I said I would love another song. And so they started in again and I share that, because inside environments where people there is that emotional safety and where we trust, we begin not always we begin to trust each other.

Dr Lori Desautels:

That's helpful. And not only do we individually hold neuroplasticity, but I talk about this in the book. We hold neuroplasticity collectively and you can feel it in a school. You can feel the nervous system state in a school, you can feel it in a grade level, you can feel it in a hallway, we can feel it in our homes. You know, when someone is struggling, emotions are so contagious that we can all pick up on that vibe. That's what we call it in our classroom. You know that emotional fever, but that contagion can happen in positive ways. We always talk about emotional contagion in negative ways, but I got to experience today that positive contagion and I'm going to just take that, because tomorrow just may be a really hard and you know hard afternoon. I mean, there's no formula or algorithm, but this is the integrated adaptable nervous system that can spread, you know, and that is very, very. That's why the book is about post-traumatic growth.

Claire English:

Thank you so much for sharing that. You can see that I'm crying because it's like that felt. So I sing to my daughter before, like as she's going to sleep, I'm giving her a bottle at night and you know she's still quite young, toddler, she's 15 months and I sing you are my sunshine to her and the reason I do that. So I'm really, I get really emotional about it. But because I intentionally want to create that safe space for her, so as we grow older with her and she doesn't have her bottle or you know, there's always that kind of um, that base, like that song can be her, her safe base, even when she doesn't have her bottle or when we're not rocking it asleep or whatever.

Claire English:

So hearing like that, that safety in that class, that must have occurred for them to feel like they and I've worked in some of the toughest environments and you know one person singing, they'll get laughed out of the room. So what it would take to establish that in a class is the most powerful thing and thank you so much for sharing that. And you're right, like the next day might be really tough, but you know that it is possible in that, in that class, to have that belt safety. It's just brilliant, you know it was it?

Dr Lori Desautels:

it really was brilliant and and it was authentic and they taught me today. And then I kept thinking about Pali Vago theory and how vocalization and humming and singing and even gargling, all of those can activate the parasympathetic pathway of the nervous system, which dampens down that stress response if it's activated, or helps us to complete that arousal cycle when we are feeling agitated and irritated, are feeling agitated and irritated, and I think singing and humming are powerful in that way because they use breath in a way where it's, I think and I would love to Dr Port just may have other things to say about that, but I think it's where the breath is extended, you know, and among many other facets.

Dr Lori Desautels:

But yeah it was so special.

Claire English:

The breath is extended, you know, and among many other facets. But yeah, it was so special. Yeah, you're not telling them to take a breath and to calm their nervous systems, because they're doing that automatically, aren't?

Dr Lori Desautels:

they Through the practice, they're doing it and it's just natural.

Claire English:

And I also love what you said about the fact that, yes, we can co-regulate with our students, but just as easily they can influence. So I talk about it as being the conductor. So we can talk about it in different ways, but I talk about it being the conductor of the energy in the room, as the teacher and we have to leave that kind of energy. And I talk about it being just as easy for our students to drag us into their dysregulation. But what you've just said is in that moment they're actually influencing your nervous system really positively. And it is this constant exchange in our classrooms and speeches, isn't it?

Dr Lori Desautels:

It is ongoing and, and as you said at the beginning, we are living systems. This is where this is. We are human beings and we are constantly, whether we are aware of it or not, we're reading each other. We're reading each other's energy and nonverbal way more than we are words. So you know our faces, our tone, our tonality, our, the way we hold our bodies. Is is just so powerful.

Claire English:

Yeah, absolutely agree. There are a lot of criticisms around a trauma-informed approach, and I think it's because when we talk about and we spoke a little bit before we were recording about buying in with educators with this model and how important that is, but there are some criticisms of an approach to education that is more trauma-informed and working in schools, I'm sure that you get that resistance as well. I feel like the second we talk about trauma informed practice, some educators just, you know, they disconnect a little bit, and I think it's because, you know, we think we don't have time. We aren't psychologists, we should just be able to teach. And that kind of leads on to a couple of questions.

Claire English:

We've already spoken about why it's important to understand the nervous systems of our students, because it really is that foundation, isn't it? What are some practical ways? Like so, if teachers are standing at the start of this kind of journey we've spoken about touch points a little bit as well but if teachers starting this journey or if they're kind of really wanting to embed more trauma-informed practice into their classrooms, how can they weave this into the day-to-day without feeling like it's something that's really time-heavy or really additional to what their jobs are in the classroom?

Dr Lori Desautels:

It's such a great question, claire, and one of the things and that's why I'm back in the classroom every week, because I wanted to do this myself just to see if it really is about building this into our procedures and routines and I talk about that in intentional neuroplasticity and connections over compliance but it is about our procedures. That's what I want to say to educators that you don't, we as educators, do not hesitate to teach procedures. That's what I want to say to educators that you don't, we, as educators, do not hesitate to teach procedures. We have to to survive, you know. And traditional procedures, you know.

Dr Lori Desautels:

We have hallway behavior, we have procedures for phone use, we have procedures for Chromebooks or iPads, we have procedures for how we leave the room and come into the room, and so this work, the applied educational neuroscience, these practices are actually a part of a morning meeting, or sometimes we call it bell work, or how we exit the day, or a class period, or how we transition Our fifth grade classes when I'm with them. I'm with them starting at 12, 20 in the afternoon and they are coming from lunch, and most of the time it's horrendously hard because they're so dysregulated in the lunchroom, so I literally sit in my car when I pull up at 1220 on those two afternoons and take my deep breaths, because I know that you know, the majority of the time they're going to come in really rough. And so I intentionally take practices. We use breath, we use movement, I use novelty and we have a new manual coming out, which I'm so excited about, called Body and Brain Brilliance. It's coming out this summer and it's filled with 35 practices for adults and adolescents and children, and it's what I'm doing in the classroom every day.

Dr Lori Desautels:

So it's about our procedures. It's like I mean we like today we started off the day and I brought in a jar of marbles and I asked them what they thought these marbles might have to do with the nervous system. And that's how we start and their attention is on me. They're not thinking about the hallway. And then we start in talking about glimmers, or we call them glitters today, and so that's, but that's discipline. What I just described and this is what the book talks about this is discipline. Discipline that is building engagement, discipline that's intentional and it's a part of our procedures oh, I love that.

Claire English:

And discipline is about the education, isn't it? And there is something so empowering about us, no matter how old we are, understanding our minds and our bodies and knowing, when we behave in certain ways, what's going on there and you know like it's just this self-awareness that is so powerful. And when you start teaching students about that stuff, things can change for them, and you can. You have this beautiful shared language with them and you know. And then all of a sudden, the way you talk about their behaviors and the way you restore harm or whatever you do it's, it changes because you've got that language around and that understanding around. It becomes about not them as people being, you know, badly behaved. It becomes about something else that we kind of work together with.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Absolutely. And in fact in the new manual we have an activity and I did this with fifth grade at the beginning, so I bought some just on Amazon. I bought some of these lab coats and they all have their own gloves of these lab coats and they have. They all have their own gloves and for the last three years I bought these. I bought these three years ago from a science store. They're sheep brains and just like you would use, you know, in a science lab.

Dr Lori Desautels:

And so the students learned about the scientific method, which is academic, but in our lab it's called the human laboratory.

Dr Lori Desautels:

So they first observed the sheep, the little sheep brains, because anatomically they look like ours, and they learn about the limbic system.

Dr Lori Desautels:

They learn the amygdala Again, we're oversimplifying it, but for this it's perfect they learn about the cortex, they can see the brainstem and then they begin to transfer that knowledge and thinking about their own nervous systems. So when I come in to the fifth grade class, that is our human lab time, and we, the kids, feel empowered, they feel relieved. And we, the kids, feel empowered, they feel relieved. They are learning that the behavior is just a signal from their nervous system that something needs to shift, and so it not only normalizes it, it celebrates. I want to move away Like I'm really tired of the word normalize. I really want to celebrate how our nervous systems know how to move into fight flight. Um it, you know, moving into fight flight gets a bad rap, but I really I think it's really important for us to not only recognize how powerful that is and when we feel like we're shutting down, but to really talk about that as an adaptive facet of how the nervous system leans into survival.

Claire English:

That idea of it just flips. It doesn't it? Because it's not like we're not, they're not working against us. It's something that, like it, keeps us alive and you know that's how our species has survived. It's because of that fight flight response. And you know when, when children have experienced traumatic experiences, their brains become this powerhouse to keep them safe and like they're strong. That's a, that's a superpower. They've been able to survive immense hardship.

Claire English:

Unfortunately, it doesn't make it easy to then connect with them and work with them in the classroom and make them feel safe in the classroom, but at one point in their life that has been their superpower. You know and I think, yeah, flipping that and I'm not a psychologist, but being able to recognize, like as a teacher, that that is at one point in their life been a superpower and that is one of their strengths and that is something that you know we should admire about that young person and appreciate, is, I think that could really change the game for educators. Looking at the behaviours on the surface and going that is really not. It's really not what I want to be dealing with.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Absolutely, and one of the things I've been sharing with schools and districts and organizations this past year, we're really looking at trauma logic, and trauma logic and I think I talk about it a little bit in intentional neuroplasticity is is really some people can refer to that as private logic, but it's our perception of the world based on our experiences, and so if you grew up in an environment where the adults that were supposed to protect you and love you and care for you unconditionally were not present or harmed you in any way, then trauma logic for you is I don't trust adults anywhere and so we're not excusing the behavior. That's the big rub. That's the resistance. It's not excusing the behavior. That's the big rub, that's the resistance. It's not excusing the behavior, it's understanding what is beneath the behavior, and this is a systemic shift that we need to make globally.

Dr Lori Desautels:

It is an educational shift, obviously, and a trauma responsive organization or school is only trauma responsive when we are addressing our discipline protocols. It's not about the speakers you bring in, it's not about the programs you implement. It really is about the work from the inside out. The work from the inside out and how are we also um leaning into our own nervous systems, knowing that that's the greatest gift. As resma medicum says, the greatest gift we can give to our children, our adolescents and to each other is to do our own work.

Claire English:

And, and that's that's a mindset shift yeah, I think there's a lot of work to be done. Once we understand like it's not excusing it, but once we understand and can explain those behaviours a little bit more, then we can put things in place that actually work. Like if traditional discipline worked, then we wouldn't be isolating the most vulnerable eventually, like inevitably isolating them, which happens Like you put them on that path, and if it worked, then we would be nipping it in the bud before it got to that point. So, even just for that fact that like it's clearly not working and I think not even as educators but as a society, we have a responsibility to do something about that because of the incarceration rates and what we can do to, you know, keep young people out of prison, and like there's so much that we can do as a society and I think that education is one part of that. And, yeah, empowering educators to be able to do that through that knowledge and through, like, those practical things in the classroom, like you spoke about the kind of systems in place, even like I teach teachers even things like a starter spoke about the kind of systems in place, even like I teach teachers even things like a starter activity in the classroom.

Claire English:

I think that is a trauma-informed approach, depending on how you do it. If it's something that students are able to come in and feel successful about, it's a consistent routine, so you know it's supporting their nervous system, like. So even the teaching and learning pedagogies that we use are still trauma-informed. So once you start to kind of frame them through that lens as well, it's like oh, actually I can be a trauma-informed educator and be really effective at that. So I think that, yeah, there's lots of work to be done, even with like leadership going. Oh, no, like we are doing trauma-informed practice, but we just need to frame it in a different way. And yeah, I don't know if that all makes sense.

Dr Lori Desautels:

No, it does no, and a starter activity is really disciplined too on the front end, creating a practice and activity that they can delve into with some autonomy and with some success. That is again discipline, but it's getting out in front of a negative behavior absolutely so.

Claire English:

Not all challenging behaviors that we see in the classroom, though, are due to trauma. It's not all due to, you know, an escalated nervous. It's not all due to you know, an escalated nervous system. It's not all due to adverse childhood experiences. Working with teenagers in general so I'm a secondary teacher working with teenagers in general is really tough, no matter what their context is. What about their normal neurodevelopment explains why it's so challenging to work with adolescents. Yeah.

Dr Lori Desautels:

So I have been in the middle school here in Indianapolis until this semester for the past two and a half years and working with seventh grade students, and also I've worked with high school and all the way through young adulthood. The things that many of us are not trained or we're not prepared to understand is that starting in upper elementary grades, the nervous system goes through the second greatest time of development and with, even even without adversity. Well, you can't really live on this earth without adversity, but without big T trauma. That nervous system is. The brain is really pruning away connections that are no longer needed and the brain is and the nervous system are preparing for young adulthood through efficiency and through specificity and so we're building. These are building blocks.

Dr Lori Desautels:

So the greatest time of brain development is around the second trimester, through year two, beginning of year three, but then the second greatest time is adolescence. And so you know, dr Jill Bolte, finish wiring up and myelinating until 30s, late 20s, mid 20s, away connections they no longer need. Then, as it begins to wire up, it's again. We are the brain is experience dependent, so it's wiring to the experiences that are in front of it or before it, and then it's also wiring up for those young adult, adolescent years. So it's just, it's a crazy time, but it's a time where you know we need to celebrate that and we need to understand that you've got an emotionally developed brain, but this part behind the forehead, the medial prefrontal cortex, is not developed. So your ability to pause, your ability to problem solve and to predict and to analyze and just take a step back is, you know, those skills have not fully developed yet, so it can be a bit chaotic.

Claire English:

That's so good for educators to know and for the young people in the class to know. Isn't it Like for them to be able to understand that that's what they're going for? I wish that I knew that as a teenager.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Oh, and also the pandemic has added layers of very, sometimes very subtle, toxic stress to our adolescents, and we see that globally, anxiety and depression in our youth has risen to the highest numbers. In the US, and, in fact, inside Out is creating another film, pixar is creating another film, inside Out 2, and they've included the emotion of anxiety, and so I really want to just share this knowledge with our fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth graders all the way through high school, even through young adulthood, that this is a time of great discovery. It's a time to get curious and to wonder, and it's also a time to really celebrate the plasticity that's happening. We tell our seventh graders whatever you want to do a year from now, five years from now, a decade from now, start practicing it now and learning about it now, because your brain will never, ever learn as quickly or as efficiently. It's a powerful time again.

Claire English:

I wish that I knew that when I was a teenager yeah too lost in the chaos.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Well, we probably didn't yeah, we probably didn't have the reasoning or the logic to really embody it, but it would have been.

Claire English:

Yeah, it would have been really kind of relieving to know that yeah, I'm wired for reactivity yeah, so like the kind of behaviors that we might see, we might see more reactivity in the classroom in general like what other behaviors might we expect from these students?

Dr Lori Desautels:

yeah, I really just more impulsivity, maybe a little more, you know, um, sometimes shutting down too, like with a lot of our high school and middle school kids. We don't tend to see as much externalizing behavior, like we do see some fighting and we see some running, but there's a shutdown, especially during like since COVID happened, we this can we see failing grades, we see high absences, we can see kids just not completing assignments, not starting assignments. You know hoods over their head shutting down, you know not engaging, just kind of disconnecting from themselves. A lot of, you know maybe some alcohol, drug use, vaping, and again I'm generalizing, but in secondary we just see more of that, what we call that dissociative shut down, immobilized. It's not really a freeze, but it's that dorsal, vagal and polyvagal. It's where we begin to disconnect from ourselves and disconnect from the world around us.

Claire English:

That's so valuable to know, because what do we do traditionally when we see these behaviors?

Dr Lori Desautels:

Well, they become, yeah, they become invisible to us and we think you know what catches and the education system, what catches the education system's attention, are externalizing behaviors. Those are those behaviors that are fighting, running, eloping. You know we see defiance, you know disrespect, those are acting out pain. But when you think about the autonomic nervous system states, there is also that brainstem shutdown. Dr Albert Wong refers to that as flop and drop. It's where you just become really untethered and that's where addiction can live. That's where suicidal ideation can live. There's felt isolation, ideation can live, there's felt isolation and there's a disconnect. Deb Dana says the story of the cortex is our story of connection and felt safety. The story of that fight flight is our story, nervous system story of protection. And then when we are feeling we can't run from a stressor or fight off a stressor, then we move into that shutdown which is our nervous system story of disconnection so powerful to know for everybody.

Claire English:

I think, like, absolutely it's easy to pass off those behaviors as just moody teenagers or, you know, teenagers that are just being. You know, they are being teenagers, aren't they? But we don't have the understanding to then support them through that. If we don't understand what's actually happening in their minds and things like not handing in assignments and all of that kind of stuff. If we're picking up on that as educators, what we're likely to do is just kind of push them and you're being apathetic, like I hear a lot of this like, oh, I'm so fed up with my apathetic class and what do I do about my apathetic class? Well, what do you do about that? If, if, if, like, we do have teenagers that are kind of going through this stuff developmentally, how do we support them through that and still kind of getting them to to engage in in what we need to get them to engage in?

Dr Lori Desautels:

Right. So, and that's a great question, and you know, one of the things I hear is from secondary educators is that I've got to prepare them for the real world. You know they're like, it feels like we are, you know, babying or we are giving in to this behavior. And we have to understand that kids in survival states cannot reason, they don't have the capacity to be logical, to reason, to respond to incentives that are similar to rewards, stickers, consequences I mean you don't care about a consequence when you are shutting down, and so our schools tend to go to the what's familiar. So we suspend, you know, we kick out, we expel, you know we write up, but yet if the behavior is continuing, that is a pattern that we as the adults have to understand that what we're doing is not working.

Dr Lori Desautels:

And the greatest modeling and the teaching we can give our secondary students is to be predictable, emotionally available and present with them through a conflict. That doesn't mean you're giving into the behavior. That means that and I love this question from Deb Dana. She asks is my nervous system strong enough to hold us both for a few minutes? And I think we have to really, you know, think about that with our older students, because what I started to say earlier is that the pandemic has impacted the gap in chronological age and emotional age. So the 2021-22 school year, when I began at Belzer Middle School, we had seventh graders coming in that were so rough they were so physically aggressive and verbally aggressive as middle school students that we were seeing the behaviors of seven-year-olds school students that we were seeing the behaviors of seven-year-olds. You know, sometimes when there is a lot of ongoing unpredictability, isolation, which is what the pandemic brought we see that emotional age, sometimes half of that chronological age. Again, not excusing behaviors, but we have to understand that that's.

Claire English:

Yeah, that's really fascinating to like. The students that I taught over the pandemic were already. So I work in a specialist um well, not now because I just moved countries, but a specialist social, emotional and mental health school for teenage boys. So already they exhibited behaviors that were incredibly volatile violence, um, lots like moment to moment, you just never knew what was going to happen.

Claire English:

So the main, when you said that thing about like am I strong enough to hold us in this moment, that was so much of the job, like weathering the storm, almost until we get to a place where we're, you know, regulated enough to then discuss that and come together and work through things. We're, you know, regulated enough to then discuss that and come together and work through things. So after the pandemic, yes, I saw an escalation of sorts, but I didn't see it from a perspective of, like a mainstream educator seeing students who might not have been experiencing those things before. So I wasn't able to kind of really gauge the impact of the pandemic on the average cohort, if that makes sense. So, yeah, it's really interesting to hear you talk through that, because a lot of educators have said the same thing to me.

Dr Lori Desautels:

It's and we lost a lot of students because many of our students around the globe did not have access to technology, that some of the schools I mean, we just it just a big, you know it just threw everybody and we weren't prepared and you know, with with the way that we were going to be able, or that we were going to need to be able, to integrate technology so quickly and and so there was just a lot of shutdown, you know, with with a lot of our high school and middle school students because they could not. You know, school is social too, so they, they were isolated. You know things, life was unpredictable, chronically unpredictable, and so that's that's where we saw that, that real shutdown, and and we saw, we saw it across all ages, developmentally, but middle and high school students yeah, well.

Claire English:

I mean so much of that time is about like being around your peers, isn't it? And yeah, socially and that, that learning socially, um, and you are, at that time, kind of separating from your parents and wanting that autonomy, and there's so many things, like in terms of needs meeting, that they weren't getting during the pandemic. That then would have just manifested in ways, you know, after the pandemic. Yeah, it's challenging.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Yeah, it's almost as if our little ones and our middle secondary students were hit the hardest. Students were hit the hardest. You know just those. You know, when I think about our first graders today, our kindergarten, our early childhood children that were maybe in the womb during the pandemic, or they were born during the pandemic, or you know, they were one year, two years old during the pandemic. You know, in that very vulnerable developmental time where families were struggling and that emotional contagion is so sticky in those first couple of years of life that our children felt it. I mean, you know they, they embodied that yeah it.

Claire English:

I mean, you know they, they embodied that, yeah. Yeah, I think that's really interesting to hear. I'm just thinking now like you're always kind of reflecting on yourself as a parent, aren't you? And I'm like, oh God, what's my, what's my emotional contagion Like at the moment, and it's really important to keep kind of going back to that. But yeah, I can't remember that.

Dr Lori Desautels:

No, and and we you know and I always share with parents and educators that our nervous system is resilient and even if we were off or rough or we went through a rough period of time, our nervous systems are built to wobble, they're not built to break. And that is that really, that co-regulation with each other. Through, you know, through difficult times, that's the buffer that mitigates that past. You know those experiences that were hard. You know, on development.

Dr Lori Desautels:

So it's, you know, we really are resilient, but we have the capability to be resilient, but we have to have practice experiences of co-regulation to embody that resiliency as well.

Claire English:

Yeah, when we go into our classrooms and I have a lot of teachers that say I just find it so high because I run a course and one of the first lessons is so I do like a behavior backpack where I talk about like the causes behind, like the you know kind of things behind behavior, and then the first lesson is all about establishing like teaching persona, and a lot of the teaching persona that we establish is around, like it's the I mean everything's the foundation of regulation, but the teaching persona and a lot of the teaching persona that we establish is around, like it's the I mean everything's the foundation of regulation, but the teaching persona is all about our non-verbals and how we're sending messages of safety and regulation through our non verbals and that kind of establishes the teaching persona that we have. What kind of suggestions would you have for teachers if they're feeling really dysregulated going into their classrooms? Do you have any like tips where teachers can kind of stop and take stock and start to regulate a little bit better?

Dr Lori Desautels:

Yes, I mean, that's where that's the foundation of the work is the adult nervous system. So we talk about and it's in the new manual and I actually talk about this a lot in the new book intentional neuroplasticity. We have to anchor ourselves, so we have to get out in front of our own behavior. This is critical work and we need to really be intentional about creating in-the-moment practices for our own nervous systems and then some practices that we can do when we have more space and time, and I named these in the new manual and I think I talk about these in the book. I have in the moment anchors when I'm at work and my breathing intentional. We call those focused attention practices. That's critical for me Before I get out of my car, when I get out of bed in the morning, before I go to sleep at night. On my website there are, I think, 500 practices of focused attention practices Chewing gum, popping a peppermint in your mouth, drinking cold water, splashing ice, cold water on our faces can activate the parasympathetic.

Dr Lori Desautels:

Gargling, singing, humming, sighing is a wonderful practice. I don't know if anyone just sighs, but sighing is a very powerful practice too. And so there are and we really try to grabbing a piece of dark chocolate, chewing on ice, holding a hand warmer there are. When you think about our sensory systems, that is where we can find some ease and some relief with regulating our own nervous system. It's through the sensory systems so that those are. I mean, it's great when we talk a lot about that and the new manual actually has an adult section before we even begin addressing adolescents or children I'm so excited for your new manual.

Dr Lori Desautels:

I'm so excited. I can't wait to get my hands on it. Thank you so much. It supports intentional neuroplasticity and connections over compliance.

Claire English:

Yeah, yeah, brilliant. And what you said about adults getting ahead of their behaviors is not even about, you know, getting ahead of like regulation. It's about getting ahead of their behaviors, because what we need to understand as human beings everything that we do in that classroom is a behavior as well, and our behaviors are going to be regulated or dysregulated and driven by our, our stress response as well. So, getting ahead of our behaviors and being able to choose behaviors or have behaviors that are more, um likely to connect with our young people, you know, like the way you frame that I think is so powerful getting ahead of our behaviors and I'm going to be using that in the future, if that's okay, I'll be sure to. I'm sure to call you on that one that's perfect.

Claire English:

So, laurie, you spoke about the fact that you've got a manual coming up. You have brilliant books that I would I already recommend to everybody, and I'll pop all of those in the show notes. Is there anything else you want to talk about before we finish up?

Dr Lori Desautels:

I just want to say, first of all, thank you for having me. I've enjoyed our conversation immensely and I just want all the educators out there to really give themselves such grace, because this year that we're in, this school year that we're all going through right now, is challenging and we thought, because the pandemic lessened and because we were past it, that we could just go back to the way things were. And we've got some rough years ahead of us, but we know practices, the research is informing us now and I'm hopeful that this will push us, in a very healthy way, to begin to do school a little differently.

Claire English:

Thank you so much, laurie, and just for all of your support and for just being such a beacon of life and education in this space. I really appreciate you and your work. Thank you, claire.

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